


Save a Horse, Ride a Cowgirl

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Barely Functional Alcoholism, F/F, Set during the Epilogue, implied past sexual violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24037717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: Sadie bent to retrieve her hat, and when she looked back Karen was regarding her over heaving breasts and between parted thighs. “Mrs. Adler,” she breathed, “I don’t think that was your first rodeo.”
Relationships: Sadie Adler/Karen Jones
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	Save a Horse, Ride a Cowgirl

_i._

It didn’t take much for Sadie to break into the room above the cheap saloon, although a feller did have to be _discouraged_ from trying to follow her inside. She took up position against the wall facing the door, hat pulled low and hand resting close to her six-shooter. 

The door, when it opened, admitted a stumbling, half-dressed blonde trailing a bottle of whiskey from her fingers, and and a feller following after her grabbing at her behind.

The feller was the first one to notice Sadie standing in the shadows. “I think we’re in the wrong room, sweetheart.”

“No,” said Sadie, stepping half into the light and tipping her hat back, “just you. The lady is exactly where she’s supposed to be.”

There’s something about Sadie - if there’s other men about fellers will try to face her down rather than risk their manly pride, but if they can back down unseen then they usually do. This one turned tail like a scalded bobcat. 

The blonde hardly seemed to notice her beau’s departure. She took a stumbling step into the room, lurched sideways and grabbed at thin air, somehow managing not to fall. Her unfocused gaze landed on Sadie’s face, and her eyes widened in recognition. “Mrs. Adler,” said Karen Jones. “Mrs. Sadie Adler.”

“Karen,” said Sadie. “It’s been a while.”

Karen’s eyes narrowed. “I woulda thought you’d caught a bullet by now.”

“And we all thought you’d drunk yourself to death.”

Karen giggled mirthlessly and took a swig from the bottle. “Ain’t for lack of trying.” She swayed where she stood, and eventually half fell, half sat on the edge of the bed with a sad little bounce. “What do I owe the pleasure of this little reunion to then?”

Sadie pulled the bounty poster out of her duster; _Karen Jones: Wanted for Thieving, Murder, and Immoral Conduct. $25._ The likeness of Karen looked drunk and mean. Sadie held it up so the real Karen, who just looked drunk, could get a look. 

Karen leaned forward, nearly spilling out of her dress, her humourless giggle replaced with a drunkard’s belly laugh. “Mrs. Sadie Adler,” she rolled Sadie’s name around in her mouth, “bounty hunter. It suits you.” 

“So I’m told.” 

Karen flopped back on the mattress. “Well, goodnight Mrs. Sadie Adler, bounty hunter.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Karen?”

“Going to sleep.” 

“You don’t understand how this works, you can sleep when you’re in jail.”

Karen huffed and pushed herself up on her elbows to blearily regard Sadie. “Look, _Mrs._ Adler, you ain’t one of the boys to sling me over your shoulder, so either you drag me down them stairs and through the saloon by my hair--”

“Don’t think I won’t,” Sadie growled.

“--and try to throw me across the back of your horse in the dark, or we can both get some sleep and talk in the morning, like old friends.”

“Goddammit, Karen!” Sadie started, but Karen was already snoring, and Jesus, Sadie had owned horses that didn’t snort that loud. 

Sadie slid down the wall until she hit the floor and tipped her hat forward over her eyes, wishing it covered her ears as well.

The next thing Sadie knew was the smell of coffee and the glare of the morning sun in her eyes as someone lifted her hat away from her eyes. She batted Karen’s hand away and said, “Thought you woulda run?”

“Figured you would just have found me again, you always was good at digging them O’Driscoll boys out from whatever rock they were hiding under.” Sadie pushed herself to feet, back creaking, and accepted the tin cup of thin coffee that Karen was offering her.

Karen picked up the bottle of last night’s whiskey that she’d left rolling on its side by the bed, there wasn’t much more than a splash left in it and she poured most of that into her own coffee, offering the dribble that was left to Sadie, who waved her off. “Ask me again after noon.”

“I have a proposition for you.”

“Go on then,” said Sadie. “I’ve never been propositioned by a bounty before. Guess they usually save that for the fellers.” 

“I--” Karen’s eye must of been caught by the bounty poster Sadie had left out, _Wanted for Thieving, Murder, and Immoral Conduct,_ because she said, “he deserved it, that feller I killed, he deserved it.”

“Probably,” Sadie agreed.

“He was trying to-- well, after what the O’Driscoll boys did you know what men are like, and it’s been a long while since I could rely on the likes of Arthur charging in to save me.”

“I don’t care about any of that,” said Sadie. She’d always had a relaxed attitude to women killing men; that working girl from Valentine, the one who’d killed all them fellers, Sadie had let her run. “Thought you was propositioning me?”

“I have a _business_ proposition.”

Sadie snorted. “You’re a wanted woman, Karen. I haul you in to the Lemoyne sheriff, and collect my twenty-five dollars. That’s my business.”

“Twenty-five dollars!” Karen screeched. “That’s ridiculous, it’s insulting, I _killed_ a man.” 

“You just got done saying that he deserved it.”

“He’s still dead, ain’t he?” Karen pointed out. “Look, you ever hear of a feller called George Cartwright?”

“Wife killer,” said Sadie. “Law never caught up with him.”

Karen nodded. “Except, I know what he calls himself now, I know where his ranch is, I’ve even been sniffed at in the street by his new young wife. So what’s say you and I go on up there, you grab the murderous bastard and turn him in for more than I’m worth, and I go on my merry way.”

Sadie mulled it over; Cartwright had killed two wives already, and the idea of taking him out would hold a certain appeal even without the hundred dollar price on his head. “Fine.”

“And I get half his bounty.”

Sadie shook her head. “Not fine.”

George Cartwright walked around the back of his house and found himself faced with Sadie’s six-shooter. “George Cartwright. You come quietly now.”

Cartwright was big, broad man who hid his meanness behind blue eyes and an _aww shucks, ma’am_ smile. It took him all of five seconds to realise that he was playing to the wrong audience and Sadie wasn’t going to fall for it, and Sadie saw his gaze move speculatively to the pitchfork leaning against the house. 

Sadie cocked her pistol. “Don’t do it,” she recommended. 

“George? Honey, where are you?” That was the new Mrs. Cartwright coming round the side of the house. Cartwright smiled, and Sadie swore, and then the new bride’s tone changed. “You! What are you doing here, you, you _harlot?_ ”

Sadie grinned, baring teeth - distractions always had been Karen’s speciality - and she slammed the barrel of her gun into Cartwright’s teeth. It didn’t have the force to knock him out, but it did knock him down, and Sadie could hogtie a man in half a minute or less. 

By the time the new Mrs. Cartwright rounded the corner of the house, mid-catfight with Karen, Sadie was sitting on top of her husband tying his ankles together.

“I-- I-- I’m fetching the law!”

“You do that,” Sadie called after the retreating woman, who didn’t realise how lucky she’d just got, “save me the trip.”

“I’m gonna go before the law gets here too,” said Karen. “I’m trusting that you're good for my fifty dollars.” 

“Fifty dollars?” Sadie spluttered. “Twenty.”

“Thirty,” Karen countered.

“What do you need thirty dollars for, Karen, how much can moonshine cost?”

“Twenty-five.” 

“Done.”

There was a nag hitched out back of the house that must have belonged to the Cartwright ranch. “I’ll see you around, Mrs. Adler,” said Karen, mounting up and leaving Sadie with the hogtied and gagged George Cartwright.

_ii._

Sadie tracked Karen down in a dirt cheap flophouse hotel. The door almost flew off its hinges when Sadie kicked it in after Karen didn’t respond to her knocking or calling out. Karen was out cold on the bed, the room smelled of gin and sweat, and an empty bottle rolled away from Karen’s hand and bounced onto the floor to join a half dozen others.

Sadie could tell that Karen wasn’t dead because of the snoring, and the drooling. She struck a match on the heel of her boot, lit a cigarette and inhaled. “Goddammit, Karen.” 

Sadie put her foot up on the bed frame, stepped over Karen’s unconscious form, and sat down on the thin mattress to smoke, and wait. 

When Karen finally came round, groaning and snorting, she didn’t seem surprised to find someone in bed with her, or particularly surprised that it was Sadie. 

“You ever think of putting a gun to your head?” Sadie asked, gesturing around the room with her lit cigarette. “It’d be faster.”

Karen glared up at her. “Why ain’t you done it?”

Sadie had thought about it, she’d thought about it a lot, but there had always been something that needed doing; seeing Colm swing, taking out every last one of the O’Driscoll boys, keeping her word to Arthur and seeing John’s family got out, and now Micah. Sadie wasn’t introspective by nature, but she was starting to suspect that there was always going to be one more thing to do. She shrugged and said, “I been busy.” 

Sadie hadn’t said anything to John about her run in with Karen, even though John always told them whenever he ran into folks from the old days: Pearson and his store, Tilly and her baby; one evening Sadie and Abigail had taken turns to read aloud from Mary-Beth’s book, hooting and hollerin’ with laughter, not at Mary-Beth, they were proud as punch of her, but the book had been truly ridiculous. 

“Look, John and Abigail, they’ve got a ranch now--” 

Abigail had always had a soft spot for Sadie, had treated her real tender after Jake and the O’Driscolls, and was grateful for everything Sadie had done when John was arrested and after, it was why she tolerated the amount of trouble Sadie brought to John’s door. But Sadie reckoned that bringing Karen Jones home might be the final straw. 

“No,” said Karen, sitting up too quickly and blanching like she was going to be sick. She swallowed the bile and said, “I ain’t throwing myself on the mercy of Abigail Roberts. She always did sneer at me, and just because she got John to marry her. As though John Marston was such a catch. Molly snagged Dutch and thought she was set for life, and look what happened to her, and what was I supposed to do, lie down for Bill Williamson or Micah Bell--?”

Karen took a deep and shuddering breath, and started fumbling for a bottle that wasn’t empty. 

“I left your money on the nightstand,” said Sadie, standing and grinding her cigarette out under her heel. Karen’s laugh was hollow. “Take it and go someplace nicer.”

_iii._

Sadie was drinking her bounty away in the Van Horn saloon after turning in a snake oil salesman to the local sheriff when she felt someone coming up behind her. She downed her whiskey and gripped her hunting knife.

“Lookin’ for some company, lady?” a female voice purred in her ear.

Sadie turned around and propped her elbows up on the bar. She looked down, and then up. “Karen,” she said, “you’re looking good.”

Karen looked like the sort of working girl who’d bash a feller over the head while he was trying to take his pants off and go through his pockets before he woke up, so significantly better than she’d looked the last time Sadie had seen her. 

Karen leaned in close, and whispered in Sadie’s ear, “You wanna rob a stagecoach with me?” 

Sadie tipped her hat at the drinkers who were staring openly at them. “Fellers.” She followed Karen out of the bar and said, “I don’t work with drunks.”

“Lemme buy you a drink and tell you about the stage,” said Karen, stopping next to the horse station. “This your horse? She’s fine.” 

Hera was a mean as a snake mustang that Sadie had been riding since her predecessor, the unfortunately named Lucky, had been shot out from under her. Sadie wasn’t sure about Hera yet, and she weren’t that sure about Karen either.

“She bites,” Sadie warned, swung into the saddle and waited for Karen to haul herself up behind. She directed Sadie out of town and up into the hills, off the main trails. They reached a small cabin with a sad looking pig pen out front; a pair of legs stuck out from behind a pile of straw and pig shit.

“He dead?” Sadie asked. 

“Naw.” Karen kicked one of the legs as they passed and got a muffled grunt in response. “Just a feller I met in town; I keep him full of whiskey and he doesn’t bother me so much.”

The cabin was one room, but there was a bed, a table and chairs, curtains on the window, canned food by the sink; Karen had gone up in the world. She waved Sadie into a chair and poured a splash of whiskey into two cups.

“You remember the Valentine bank job?”

“There ain’t been one, at least not recently.”

“This was years back,” said Karen. “I pulled it - Arthur, Bill, and Lenny helped.”

“Back when we was all running with Dutch?” said Sadie. “Wait, weren’t that Bill’s job?”

Karen snorted. “Bill Williamson could hardly pull his own cock. _I_ planned that job; the last job the Van der Linde gang pulled where no one died and we actually got away with the take.”

Sadie downed her whiskey. “Why are we talking about this?”

“Because,” said Karen, “I know about an unguarded stage passing nearby late at night, but I need one good gun to take it. You and me can help each other, Mrs. Adler. Or - ” Karen downed her whiskey “ - I can stay here till that feller outside sobers up enough to crawl into bed with me, and after I’ve killed him I’ll swing for it.” 

It wasn’t the worst plan Sadie had ever heard, and she used to run with Dutch Van der Linde so she’d heard some pretty shitty plans. The stage was taking wages to the Annesburg mine, there was just the one guard riding with the driver, and it was due to stop at an empty station outside Van Horn to rest the horses. 

The guard let Karen lead him into the shadows, not bothering to question why there was a working girl out in the middle of nowhere in the pre-dawn hours, where there wasn’t gonna be a lot of passing trade. Sadie rolled her eyes; she could run a better transport company than whoever employed these boys blindfolded and with one arm tied behind her back. 

“My turn with the whore when you’re done,” called the driver after his friend disappeared, and just before Sadie wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled her forearm against his throat; she wouldn’t have tried it with a fighter, but this boy was just a driver and didn’t know enough to use his height against her. He briefly panicked, sank to his knees, and then his belly, out cold.

Sadie followed after the guard, who was all hands, trying to pull down Karen’s dress and hike up her skirt. Sadie levelled her six-shooter at the back of his neck. “Leave the lady alone,” she growled. 

“Hey, she’s working, mister--” before he could turn round and realise his mistake, Sadie struck the butt of her gun into his skull, and slammed him face first into the station wall; he slid to the ground and didn’t get up. 

“You okay, Karen?”

“Better than he is,” Karen stepped on, and then over, the unconscious man. 

Sadie searched the driver for the key and they popped the lockbox, looking in at the stacks of bills. “Well,” said Karen, “ain’t that one of the most beautiful sights I ever did see.”

Sadie turned to ask if they ought to split the take here or back at the cabin, and found Karen staring right at her. “What?” she demanded, and Karen kissed her. 

She didn’t know who was more surprised, Karen or Sadie herself, when Sadie kissed back. 

Karen smelled of stale whiskey and cheap cosmetics and she pawed at Sadie’s front. Sadie managed to turn them so that Karen was pressed up against the side of the stagecoach; their teeth clanked together and Sadie’s hat was knocked into the dust. Karen’s breasts were pushing against Sadie, probably bruising against Sadie’s bandolier. Sadie broke the kiss, leaving them both panting, and ducked her head to suck at Karen’s breasts where they spilled out above her dress. 

Karen cried out, tugging Sadie up and fumbling at her gun belt, trying to get her pants open. Sadie caught Karen's wrist in a bruising grip; Karen yelped, met Sadie’s eyes, and grinned a feral smile.

Sadie pulled Karen’s hand away and pinned both of her wrists above her head; with her free hand Sadie reached behind Karen to open the stagecoach door and encouraged the other woman up onto the bench inside. 

Karen wore her skirts pinned up in the front so getting them out of the way was no problem, and then it was just a matter of slipping her hand inside Karen’s bloomers; the other woman was soaking wet. Come to mention it, Sadie was too; she shifted position where she was braced in the stagecoach door hoping to get some relief against the seam of her pants. She’d take care of that herself later if it was still a problem.

Sadie slid two fingers into Karen, pumping them in and out and chasing the high pitched little whines Karen was making. She circled Karen’s clit with her thumb, in rhythm with her fingers, and when Karen came it was with a keening cry that she smothered in the crook of her elbow. 

Sadie bent to retrieve her hat, and when she looked back Karen was regarding her over heaving breasts and between parted thighs. “ _Mrs. Adler,_ ” she breathed, “I don’t think that was your first rodeo.” 

Yeah, well. After Jake, after what the O’Driscoll boys had done to her, Sadie had sworn that she would never let another man touch her, that she’d cut the throat of any that tried. But she ain’t dead. And if there are two things this country has in abundance, it’s crooks and working girls. 

‘Like I said,” she said, “I been busy.”

_iv._

Sadie ran into Karen from time to time after that.

Sometimes she sought her out, and sometimes they just stumbled across each other. Sometimes Karen was okay and sometimes she really wasn’t. Sometimes she was running small jobs, and sometimes Sadie helped. Sometimes they fucked and sometimes they didn’t; sometimes Sadie gave her money, but never if she’d fucked her after that time that a drunken, outraged Karen had screamed that she _wasn’t Sadie’s whore_ loud enough for half of Rhodes to hear.

Who knew how long they might have gone on like that if it hadn’t been for goddamn Micah showing his face again.

_v._

It was a long time before Sadie was back on her feet. Her wound had got infected, Abigail was no kind of nurse, and Sadie was a worse patient. So when she insisted on riding into town it was less that they actually needed supplies and more that she had to get away from Beecher’s Hope for a time before she came to blows with John or said something to Abigail that she couldn't take back. 

When she saw Karen Jones on the main street of Blackwater she thought that maybe she shouldn’t have got up, that she was still seeing things.

“Thought you’d caught a bullet.”

Instead of _knife to the gut_ , Sadie said, “Thought you woulda drunk yourself to death.”

“Not yet.” Karen actually looked clear-eyed and more or less sober. Not that it meant anything; sometimes Karen made herself so sick from the bottle that even she couldn’t face a drop for a few days, and sometimes she needed to keep a clear head for however long it took her to make some money.

Karen also usually gave the whole, wide state of West Elizabeth a wide berth. Sadie wondered if Karen had come looking for her; which wouldn’t mean nothing neither. 

“What are you doing here, Karen?”

“I got a room at the hotel, if you want?”

Sadie tipped her hat lower over her eyes. “Yeah. Alright.”

Karen was naked as the day she was born and Sadie was in her shirtsleeves, shirt unbuttoned to just below her breasts as Karen traced the new scar on her stomach and muttered about _goddamn Micah and goddamn Dutch_. Sadie lay stiff as a corpse, breathing through clenched teeth, and said, “I’m gonna go to South America.”

The notion had been in her head for a while, but nearly bleeding to death in snow of the West Grizzlies had concentrated her mind.

Karen flopped on to her back and looked at the ceiling. “When?”

“After John and Abigail’s wedding, I guess.”

Karen snorted. “I suppose a girl could drink herself to death in South America.”

“You ain’t been invited.” Sadie bumped Karen’s shoulder to show that she didn’t mean no harm. “But if you wanted to come along,” she said, her voice gruff but her tone gentler, “I reckon I wouldn’t stop you.”


End file.
